(Original post by george-90)
Would you prefer to be reading this over state-provided internet? To each his own I suppose.

Thankfully for the economically literate, capitalism hasn't gone, doesn't show any signs of going soon, and likely will never go. Every step the West takes towards socialism is a step that the rapidly growing East takes towards capitalism.

You talk about economic literacy yet don't seem to get the idea you can have a socialist government and a capitalist economy in the same country.

(Original post by Gwilym101)
You talk about economic literacy yet don't seem to get the idea you can have a socialist government and a capitalist economy in the same country.

No, you haven't understood my comment. My comment was a response to someone referring to the absence of capitalism.

I think I made it quite clear that a socialist government and a capitalist economy can coexist in the same country, otherwise I would have had to say that the West has already taken all the steps that there are to be taken. It seems that you are illiterate by the most basic definition.

(Original post by Davij038)
You mean the internet that was developed through state funding don't you ?

Capitalism/socialism is a false dischotomy fostered on us by a fringe sect of Austrian economists.

Whilst free marketers such as Hayek, mises and Friedman are interesting they are not the end point of economic thought.

Firstly, development isn't the same as provision. One must make that distinction. Secondly, that is a red herring fallacy. The point still stands. In order for yours to stand, the assumptions that it is made on the grounds of must be true. And they're not. I'm not an anarchist. I never implied that government spending shouldn't exist, or anything of the likes.

The notions of capitalism and socialism have existed since before the Austrian school of thought. Sure, if we take the most fundamental and traditional socialist economics, that proposed by Marx, it is not compatible with capitalism, that being the system described by the likes of Ricardo and Smith. But Sanders and Corbyn are not Marxists. Their idea of socialism is vastly different. It seems that you are the one adhering to the false dichotomy that you outlined, what with your first comment and its assumptions.

(Original post by pol pot noodles)
Attracting high youth support doesn't disprove the notion. If you look at voting trends over the last 40 years in the UK it's clear the Tories either attract young voters who remain conservative or they don't but those youths end up conservative in the end anyway. There's no identifiable generation in any election that turned more left-wing through the decades.

i don't know the evidence so i'm open to persuasion, but

A. you'd need larger time period than the last 40 years to prove that 'people become naturally more conservative as they age' and
B. Could you post or link to the voting trend evidence so we can see it?

(Original post by Observatory)
It represents a generation shift, in that the specific candidates and voters are different, but not a new trend. People who grew up in the 60s and 70s had much more extreme leftist fringe figures to rally behind. The Soviet Union was still a going concern and possible winner of the Cold War, and even the mainstream parties were much further left economically than they are now. Corbyn and Sanders are the re-heated scraps of the 70s and 80s far left; they themselves are baby boomers. There isn't anything new about this movement, and in historical terms it is unusually conservative, not unusually radical.

sorry i didn't reply, your answer was thoughtful.

I agree that the mainstream parties were much more to the left in economic terms then than now.
However I think you've got it the wrong way round on Corbyn and Sanders; they seem radical now, but in the 70s their economic views would've been status-quo (both essentially Keynesian), not far-left.

Needs to be distinction between the people supporting Corbyn/Sanders and Corbyn/Sanders themselves; I think the point Bastani is making is that the former are radical, whilst jury is out on the latter.

I agree that the mainstream parties were much more to the left in economic terms then than now.
However I think you've got it the wrong way round on Corbyn and Sanders; they seem radical now, but in the 70s their economic views would've been status-quo (both essentially Keynesian), not far-left.

Needs to be distinction between the people supporting Corbyn/Sanders and Corbyn/Sanders themselves; I think the point Bastani is making is that the former are radical, whilst jury is out on the latter.

Corbyn was far left in the 70s too; I didn't take as much interest in Sanders, so I don't know about his past positions. Obviously what the Labour party is officially advocating today is far to the right of what Corbyn believed in the 70s, but there's little indication Corbyn personally changed his mind on anything, which is one reason why a lot of people even inside the Labour party have a problem with his leadership.

The people supporting Corbyn and Sanders seem more like misty-eyed nostalgics to me; I don't know about calling them "conservatives" (though could defend it) but they are basically people who want to go back to a fairytale 1970, in the same way as many UKIP voters want to go back to a fairytale 1930. They don't have new ideas, they haven't come to terms with the fact that many of their old ideas have already been shown to not work out they intend, and they're not pushing the old-new ideas as far as they would have been pushed in the past.

The radical front of the left these days is in the culture war, not economics. Corbyn and Sanders, like Castro, are notable as very 20th century figures who have somehow fallen through into the 21st.

(Original post by Observatory)
The people supporting Corbyn and Sanders seem more like misty-eyed nostalgics to me; I don't know about calling them "conservatives" (though could defend it) but they are basically people who want to go back to a fairytale 1970,...They don't have new ideas, they haven't come to terms with the fact that many of their old ideas have already been shown to not work out they intend, and they're not pushing the old-new ideas as far as they would have been pushed in the past.

Not sure the 70s was a fairytale, and would be good to see how you know so much about what Corbyn supporters want to do.
What are these ideas that they want to re-invent and why have they failed?
Anyway, I think it's clear that the people around Corbyn (like McDonnell - see, inter alia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jACOyOo9Yrs ) are listening to new ideas - it's just going to take time to cohere these into connected policies.

[QUOTE=Observatory;62769231The radical front of the left these days is in the culture war, not economics.[/QUOTE] probably me being thick but i dont know what you mean here

(Original post by Josh_Dickson)
i don't know the evidence so i'm open to persuasion, but

A. you'd need larger time period than the last 40 years to prove that 'people become naturally more conservative as they age' and
B. Could you post or link to the voting trend evidence so we can see it?

The 70s weren't a fairytale; the 70s that exist in the minds of Corbyn supporters are a fairytale. Talking about about how the Keynsian consensus brought us 3% unemployment for a time is fine, but what about the stagflation that followed? If the Keynesian consensus had been correct, stagflation should have been impossible. In practice people who hold these sorts of opinions just ignore stagflation and assume it couldn't possibly happen again, despite wanting to re-create the exact conditions that led to it. Hence they have no credibility with people who don't want to go back to those times, and aren't suffering so much from motivated cognition.

and would be good to see how you know so much about what Corbyn supporters want to do.

I can only judge them by what they have written and said in public.

What are these ideas that they want to re-invent and why have they failed?
Anyway, I think it's clear that the people around Corbyn (like McDonnell - see, inter alia, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jACOyOo9Yrs ) are listening to new ideas - it's just going to take time to cohere these into connected policies.

This sounds like politics-babble. If you think they have new ideas could you please describe one in simple terms? If you are saying they don't have new ideas, but you expect they will come up with some in the future, then I am not holding my breath.

probably me being thick but i dont know what you mean here

There is no longer a credible alternative to the market economy. There is some discussion about redistribution, and some corner cases where the market doesn't work as well, but in general the left has lost on this issue. The place the left can still win is social issues: gay marriage, multiculturalism, etc. Since all these issues are basically zero-sum, they or issues like them are going to be around forever.

(Original post by Aj12)
He calls himself a socialist, though I'm not sure why given his positions. I wish people would stop comparing the two. Other than being on the "left" they have little in common.

Because he knows that there are so many in America who do not understand what socialism actually is, they just see their perception of socialism as a good thing. Those that actually understand are either unlikely to vote for him anyway, or they will see his is not an actual socialist and still vote for him. It's a label for the liberal youth do don't like labels to rally around.